Rebuilding Puerto Rico

PUERTO RICO was completely destroyed by the hurricane. Highways, bridges, houses, all gone. One month after the storm, most of the island's three and a half million people still don't have electricity or tap water. Many are hungry. The other day another storm came and drenched people inside their roofless houses. Thousands of tons of supplies have been sent, but the total amount is a pathetic trickle compared to what is needed. President Trump's big talk rings hollow, his brag that he has overseen the greatest humanitarian effort in human history, and such self congratulatory drivel. The actual assistance doesn't measure up. The excuse is that Puerto Rico is an island, that its difficult to reach an island, as if ships were unavailable or inconvenient, as if the island were in the middle of a vast, uncharted ocean. Trump told them, and the rest of us, that American assistance would not last forever, and hinted that Puerto Rico's massive indebtedness would cause future assistance to be limited. True compassion. has anybody thought to remind the president that Puerto Ricans are United States citizens? They became citizens through military conquest; we owe them what they need. The American government, and the American people do not have a history of giving good treatment to people of color, specifically non white non Protestants. It appears to be no different now. If the island were inhabited by upper middle class conservative Christian republicans, a veritable avalanche of assistance would already have landed there, brought by a fleet of carriers, merchants ships, and tankers. The tens of thousand of Puerto Ricans who have moved to the mainland want to help, but are limited, and understandably have no desire to return now. Hundreds of billions of dollars will be required, an infusion of investment capital, thousand of aid workers, and they will need to remain on the island longer than the American president or the American people envision. Otherwise, Puerto Rico's land values will further collapse, and Wall Street corporations and billionaires will swoop in and scoop up the cheap real estate, and the people of Puerto Rico will be reduced to service sector servitude, their standard of living drastically reduced forever. It can only be hoped that this scenario never enters the mind of Donald Trump, who is known to find a good bargain irresistible. For our president, the thought of redeveloping the protectorate into a vast tourist playground for the ultra wealthy elite is perfectly in keeping With his business plan. we don't want to give him any ideas.